Blog Stats

Month / September 2006

If you’ve read my blog long enough, you’ll know that this is a scary title for me, because usually bad things happen the next day after I write “various and sundry”… this has happened twice. Hopefully it doesn’t become tradition.

I’m feeling under the weather, which is a hearty check minus. I couldn’t get out of bed to go to church, and then I had my Walker Cookout and frisbee (which I wouldn’t have cared about, but RC is under the weather now as well, so I had to be there). Being under the weather just exhausts me. I can’t move nor think as fast as I want.

I’m excited for some new things that are coming on the horizon at work. I’m working to develop a new service/justice cirriculum for Walker, and it looks like I have some partners in Arlene, Gretchen, and Jesse in all the offices around this subject. I think there’s all sorts of potential, and it’s going to take working through everything, beginning to the end.

At Staff Seminiar we did staff development, and I enjoyed it, but what I took away from it was Dan Dupee’s talk, and specifically when he said “people want to be pursued”. It was in relation to Support Raising, and how we have folks who it will take five or six asks before getting an answer one way or the other, and he said it’s a part of how we’re built that gives us that desire. And I think about my students with that. And myself for that matter. The fact that we all desire that love; we all desire knowing that someone really wants to be with us. I will say it’s a joy an a pleasure to pursue these students. I want them to know about God’s love and who He is, and how ultimately He pursues us.

I think I’ll write about Jon Stewart here soon. That seemed to be the winner. And I’m sicker now, by the way. UGH.

So at some point I want to do a 5-year reflection on September 11th, but in a way that seems cliche and I try not to be… well, some of the time.

About three years ago… around 9/11/2003, I was an RA at Grove City. For our first program, our guys (dubbed tfc – third floor Crawford side in Memorial) decided to have a gigantic dance party – just for us. We obviously invited ladies, but we had bouncers and everything. We disseminated the video below in order to encourage girls to come, and asked guys to tell whomever to come. By the end of the night, we had packed 300 people into the third floor.

First off, I’ve had some amazing hittage over the last couple days, a feat I can only assume is the work of having my link in my away message as opposed to merely my profile. I think I’ll keep doing that, because I like the fact that people occasionally read what I say.

…it could be narcissism, but I blame it more on my continued deep-seeded desire to be a editor and just write. Over the last 5 years (yes, 5 years. 5 years+, actually. I signed up for my first livejournal waaaaay back in July 2001), blogging has done more to refine and retune my grammar and style than much else, and continues to drive this sense of “what if I had stayed an English major” regret.

…or narcissism.

…anyway.

Basically, I have about 5 or six things I want to write about, but I’d rather you all decide for me. I’ll give you a list, and vote for what you’d like to see next. Leave me a comment or something (meebo me! Use the little thing in your upper right hand corner. That’ll leave me an IM with your selection!):

Actually starting my “Dear Will Sinclair” series about a Christian worldview

Utne‘s last issue had a great writeup on pornography, and I would love to write a little bit about that

Part 2 of “The Cost of Sexiness”

The New Facebook

The Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert and media revolution.

Again, I would love for some feedback. If you’re not feeling it, I’ll just keep writing on my own, as I normally do… but just think of the impact you can have!

Today I was reading in my New York Times, and the front article was dealing with the Afghanistan and Lashkar Gah, coined “Little America” because of the American presecene since the Cold War. I was reading, and found myself saddened by the results of the last five years there:

A marked increase in assisnations from the Taliban in the Halmud provence

…and this little stat as well “…Led by a 160 percent increase in Helmand’s opium crop this year, Afghanistan’s overall production grew by 50 percent to a record 6,100 metric tons, United Nations officials said Saturday. Afghanistan now produces 92 percent of the world’s supply of opium poppy, the basis for heroin”

And yet, when one goes to the Yahoo! Buzz Index, the top three searches have to with Steve Irwin passing away (understadably). But when one then looks at what has sustained the highest amount of time on the top 20 list, the WWE leads the way, with RuneScape, Shakira, and Paris Hilton rounding out the 120 day pack. And yet, when was the last time Afghanistan recieved significant time on the news? 2001? I blame this on sexiness.

This may be a bold statement, but I find it maybe to the most true: everything that is placed in front of the American people is placed there when it its most sexy. If it’s something that will raise arousal, then it’s on the news. Hence why the media will draw people to Yahoo! hot women and video games.

Anyway, I’ll continue to write more at some point, but I want all of you to watch this video. Done in 2004, Jon Stewart was on Crossfire, and spoke his heart – and wasn’t sexy, but was honest. This is the media. This is what angers me. And this “theatre” is what helps us forget that there’s opium in Afghanistan, IEDs in Iraq, and dare I mention Darfur, Lebanon, and even our own country. Enjoy.